Does Love Taste like Tempura Flavored Pocky?
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Mineta tries to convince one of the girls to play the pocky game with him, but it's Bakugo and Kirishima who are goaded into playing instead. KiriBaku.


**Loosely based on this image: taro-k . tumblr post/170870313519/valentines-day-and-pocky-game-todoroki-couldnt**

**If you don't know what the pocky game is, please look it up because I don't know how to explain it, lol.**

"I'll do it," Kaminari offered.

Kirishima barely had time to wonder _do what _when Mineta's disgusted reply, "Ew, not unless there's boobs underneath that jacket" clued him in that maybe he didn't want to know. But Kaminari seemed to think he was being funny, and that at least explained Kaminari's ditzy laughter in this situation.

He rounded the corner to see Kaminari jokingly patting down his chest, as if searching for something that wasn't there. Ignoring that, there was a group of early risers crowded around Mineta's desk, and when he peeked between the arms and bodies of his classmates, a gold and black box of pocky in Mineta's hand. Yaoyorozu, Kouda, and Iida were seated at their own desks. Jirou was positioned somewhere in between, like she couldn't decide if she wanted to snark at Mineta or if watching Yaoyorozu review yesterday's notes in her tidy, impossibly small handwriting would be less of a waste of time. Nearly everyone else was either still absent or watching Mineta.

"I still don't see the point of this game," Todoroki mused out loud.

"Whoever stops chewing the pocky stick first gets called a chicken," Mina explained helpfully. With a giggle, she added, "And if nobody backs out and your lips meet…!"

"Wouldn't it be easier to split the pocky in half? They're not very thick. It would be easy to do."

"That's not the point of the game!" Mineta shrieked. At this point, his eyes bulged almost as far out of his head as the blobs on top did.

"I'm sorry. I'm not sure I see the purpose of this game."

"Try imagining it with someone you like," Sera suggested, in a very teasing manner. It caused Todoroki to look up, at least. "More exciting now, isn't it?"

Kirishima wasn't even sure Todoroki had someone he liked. Which felt weird to think, because he'd previously assumed every high schooler had at least on person they admired, but when he tried to picture Todoroki daydreaming over a crush – nope, wasn't happening.

"I want to play!" Hagakure, the invisible girl, piped up.

Mineta's face brightened.

"Um, but not with you, Mineta..."

This time, Kaminari laughed so hard he had to lean against Mineta's desk to avoid falling over. Asui entered the classroom, casting him a curious glance on the way to her seat. "Must have picked the wrong flavor!"

"This whole game is stupid!" Bakugo interjected, yelling at the top of his longs, as per usual.

"Guess someone's a fan of tempura flavor..." Kaminari remarked snidely.

No way in hell did tempura flavored pocky actually – _oh, gross,_ Kirishima thought as he gave the box a more thorough inspection. _It really does exist._

Still not as gross as kissing Mineta.

"I also bought strawberry, crushed almond, vanilla, and green tea!"

"But you opened the weird flavor first."

"THIS GAME IS STUPID," Bakugo repeated, in case anyone hadn't been paying attention the first time.

A cheeky grin appeared on Mina's face. "Bet you're too afraid to do it..."

"What, eat the pocky?"

"No! Play the game."

"I'm not scared and I'm not playing this stupid game."

"It sounds like you're too scared – "

They went back and forth for a while, with Bakugo insisting he wasn't afraid of anything and Kaminari joining Mina in her attempts to goad him into proving it. Deku, demonstrating once again that he was a much nicer friend than Bakugo deserved, pushed his way into the middle to try and smooth things over.

Just when Kirishima thought he'd be able to sneak to his desk without further incident, Bakugo snapped, "KIRISHIMA, GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE."

"Huh?"

"I'll prove once and for all that I'M NOT AFRAID OF ANYTHING!"

"How will eating pocky prove that to anyone?" Todoroki wondered, at the same time Kirishima was thinking _why me?_.

Make no mistake, it wasn't like Kirishima minded. He was totally okay with kissing his best friend, in fact. Bakugo would most likely not feel the same way, however, once he calmed down and realized later exactly what he had done.

"Well, what are you waiting for?"

"I, uh..."

Well, he could always lose on purpose. Claim his pointy teeth caused the pocky to break early or something. That was probably the safest plan.

Plus, it was probably the closest he'd ever get to kissing Bakugo. Even if Bakugo got pissed that he won so easily, Kirishima wouldn't regret it. Not really. Okay, maybe just a little – but only because it felt like he was kind of taking advantage of the situation, since he was fairly certain Bakugo didn't like him back. Liked him more than other people, sure, but that didn't mean the blond _liked_ him.

"So I guess we're doing this?" he laughed, but it felt kind of hollow. He felt like a bug under a microscope with the way Mina was scrutinizing him right now, and he tried to ignore it, but it was like he could _feel_ her eyes on him. "Tempura flavor, or…?"

Bakugo didn't respond, unless curling his upper lip and scowling even deeper counted.

"I can't believe my first stick of pocky is going to Bakugo," Mineta grumbled.

Doing himself a favor, Kirishima tried to avoid looking at anyone else. But damn if it didn't feel like every pair of eyes in the room was suddenly on him.

"Pokey flavor it is, then!" A pause. Stumbling over words like that was such an unmanly thing to do. "Pocky? I meant to say tempura. Why would you buy tempura flavored anyway? That sounds gross."

"Are you going to spend all day yammering about it, or are you going to grab the damn box?"

Kirishima would've obeyed, except Mina snatched it first. "Not so fast, Bakugo! This is your challenge, so I think you should be the one to start!"

Either Mina was more innocent than Kirishima thought or she was trying to get them all killed. If it was the latter and she was secretly a villain, her goal to get Bakugo more riled up was currently succeeding. His shoulders went stiff, the way they always did when he was mad. Extra mad, that was, and not just his normal levels of mad and loud.

"ARE YOU KIDDING – "

"It's an unspoken rule of the pocky game!"

"Whatever," Bakugo growled.

Kirishima was no expert on party games, but he had a feeling Mina just made that up.

Bakugo snatched the box out of Mina's hand like he was taking weapons from a villain. "I just gotta put the pocky in my mouth..." He continued grumbling to himself, until Kirishima was surprised the stick hadn't snapped already from his jaw movements. There was intensity in the way he spoke, and the glare he shot at Kirishima was like a challenge.

"Now you have to get reeeaaallly close!"

The one he gave to Mina was a death threat.

Then the way Bakugo's fingers brushed his arm caused all sensible thought to flee, and Kirishima wished he still had the ability to say something over than "um, okay". It was surprisingly gentle. There was nothing gentle about Bakugo except his fingers on Kirishima's arm right now, and holy shit if that alone didn't cause the effects of Kirishima's crush to multiply. Bakugo had touched him before, but those were all martial arts practice and hard slaps on the back or the accidental glide of his hand against Kirishima's when he reached to borrow a pencil, and nothing like this, which was intentionally soft and gentle.

He was not blushing right now. He better not have been blushing right now – Kirishima was pretty sure he was gay, but he hadn't exactly come out of the closet yet, and he didn't want the amount of shit Kaminari and Sero would give him if he started acting all gooey and blushy to be the reason why.

"Bakugo, put your other hand on Kirishima's shoulder, and Kirishima, put your hands around his waist!"

Bakugo clenched his teeth instead. What should have been an audible snap when the pocky stick broke was drowned out by the sound of Sero and Kaminari's snickering, meaning they were reacting exactly as Kirishima had predicted they would. Meanwhile, Todoroki seemed to have lost interest in the game and his attempts to understand it. Deku and Jirou must have finally gotten bored and wandered away. Everyone else was sitting in their seats, watching or waiting for class to start. That just left the three other boys, Mina, and Hagakure, really.

"Really, Mina?" Mineta deadpanned, without missing a beat. "Don't tell me you're into that kind of thing..."

"No way! I-I'm just trying to help them out!"

"I just want to see how it plays out," Hagakure added bashfully.

Even if one of them was into watching guys kiss, no one in their right mind would willingly hand that information to Mineta.

"Damn it, Mina," Bakugo grumbled. "This is your fault, so hand me another piece."

Nobody bothered to pick the remains of the first one off the ground.

With a new piece of pocky in hand, the two stood facing each other once again. Bakugo rested the stick between his teeth, lips grazing but not quite closing on the biscuit. He'd left the frosted end, the part coated with tempura flavoring, for Kirishima. Kirishima's skin didn't prickle quite as much when Bakugo touched his arm again, because now he knew what to expect. Perhaps because he didn't realize Mina had been joking, Bakugo placed his other hand on Kirishima's shoulder, and the weight alone made it feel like they were a little bit closer. Kirishima, apparently channeling his inner Kaminari today, followed suite without thinking. It was so hard to keep thoughts in his head when Bakugo was around, sometimes, but he could feel the slight curve of Bakugo's waist and the taught muscles of his obliques under his palms, and it was hard to deny this wasn't a bad idea, even if it hadn't been one of his own.

Kirishima stopped his hands at Bakugo's sides. No back touching, that would've been too obvious – then he moved his left hand up to rest on Bakugo's bicep. There. Even less obvious.

He was vaguely aware of Kaminari saying something about how natural they looked, how they probably did this all the time, in the background. He didn't catch the exact words, and didn't hear Sera muttering, "Dude, cut it out" at all.

It was hard to concentrate on anything Kaminari said when Bakugo's face was little more than a pocky stick away his own, when Bakugo's bangs were practically tickling his forehead and his eyebrows were knit like a sweater, and holy shit, was Bakugo shaking? He was, and all Kirishima could offer was an equally shaky smile in return. Like, he had to force the corners of his mouth upwards just to do it, even though he was trying to reassure Bakugo. And maybe there was a few drops of sweat involved.

He hadn't even picked up his end of the pocky stick yet.

"What are you guys doing?" Aizawa-sensei's voice cut through the tension just as it was starting to look like one of them might move. Their sensei sighed heavily. One of the consequences of working with high schoolers was that he eventually got used to this sort of thing, even when all he wanted to do was get this day over with and go back to sleep. "Save the games for after school, and get back to your seats. Homeroom is about to begin."

Which was weird, because Kirishima hadn't heard the bell ring.

_Oh well,_ he mused, sitting down at last. He'd still gotten closer to kissing Bakugo than he ever would have expected. At least this way, Kaminari and the others would probably forget it had happened sooner than if they had actually finished the game, especially since Kirishima had probably forgotten his earlier decision to lose.

They didn't speak of it again until later that night, in Kirishima's dorm room. They were supposed to be solving quadratics, and instead Bakugo was glaring at him like he had something to say.

"You know, I wouldn't have lost that game," he spat out finally.

"I know," Kirishima soothed, even though Bakugo kind of had, twice, by failing to even start. "You don't need to tell me."

"I wouldn't have!"

"It's okay, I believe you!"

"I CAN PROVE IT RIGHT NOW, DAMN IT."

"We don't have any – " Kirishima began to protest.

That didn't seem to matter to Bakugo, as he closed the space between them with a swiftness that had been nowhere to be seen while they were waiting for homeroom to start that morning. His mouth crash landed somewhere slightly off-center from Kirishima's, and Kirishima swore he felt teeth underneath those tightly closed lips. Bakugo's nose bumped into his cheek. An annoyed outtake of air hit his skin from Bakugo's nostrils. He temporarily forgot how to breathe.

Then Bakugo pulled away.

As far as kisses went, it was probably pretty bad – but what did Kirishima know? That was his first kiss, and probably Bakugo's too.

Was it even a kiss?

" – pocky," he finished numbly, unsure of what else to say. He couldn't very well ask if that was a kiss or not, because Bakugo would literally explode if it wasn't, and there were some things Kirishima just didn't feel like explaining tonight.

He thought, unfortunately, that he wouldn't get an explanation for what just happened either, until Bakugo continued, "That means I won, right?"

"I don't think that's how this works," Kirishima replied.

The blond did not appear to like that answer. "That's the reason Mineta wanted to play the stupid game in the first place, isn't it?!"

"It is, but – you do realize that means we just kissed, right?"

"Yeah. So? I don't mind kissing you."

Kirishima swallowed thickly, unsure of how best to proceed. "I didn't mind it either," he replied finally.

"It would have freaking sucked if you hadn't," Bakugo returned. "Wanna do it again, shitty hair?"

"...Do you want me to go buy some pocky for next time?" Kirishima asked, squinting uncertainly. As far as he could tell, he was definitely awake and Bakugo didn't appear to have bumped his head recently. The blond was glaring directly at him, scowling like usual.

"Fuck the pocky. We don't need it."

**Expect a TodoMomo redux on 11/11 (maybe).**

**The outtakes for this fic were pretty good, ex: "I was going to write 'eyebrows scrunched like he wanted a unibrow', then I thought of 'knit like a sweater' and decided to be serious instead" and "I could end it here and people would want to murder me for the bait and switch".**

**I'm bad at writing shipping fics, but I deserve a gold star for trying on that ending.**


End file.
